The Kennedy Endeavor (Presidential Series Book 2) Page 12

  “You seem to forget who you are speaking to, Comrade Ulbricht,” Khrushchev said, “we agreed on this plan a long time ago. Save your propaganda for everyone else. I know you have been stockpiling the material for a wall for years.”

  A long silence greeted this dose of reality.

  “Do I have your support, Comrade Khrushchev?” Ulbricht asked, like a child asking permission to run a prank. “Is it time?”

  Why do you think I’d be talking to you about it, if it weren’t Khrushchev thought. “It is.”

  “When?”

  “The thirteenth. The Westerners feel that day bodes ill luck. We will feed into that. Plus, I am moving tank units forward in case there is a reaction by the Westerners.”

  “Do you think they will fight?”

  Khrushchev could hear the fear in Ulbricht’s voice. “If they fight, then Berlin is the least of our worries. We must make a show of strength. That’s how this game is played.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Khrushchev hung up the phone and looked across his desk at Mikoyan. “The fool spouted his same line to me about a wall that he’s been telling everyone else.”

  Mikoyan laughed. “Beria was wrong about many things, but he was correct about Ulbricht. He called him the greatest idiot he’d ever seen.”

  “Coming from Beria, that might have been a compliment,” Khrushchev said. “Of course, Beria should have paid more attention to his own situation.”

  “And the Americans?” Mikoyan asked, steering the conversation away from Beria, whose fate he had almost shared. “What do you think their response will be?”

  “That will be the interesting part,” Khrushchev said. “Kennedy only mentioned West Berlin during the summit, not Berlin. For him to make that distinction was either an ignorant blunder or a tacit acceptance that he would not oppose our actions there.”

  “And if he does?” Mikoyan dared.

  “Then I will take appropriate measures,” Khrushchev said.

  Mikoyan surveyed Khrushchev across the table. Things were not as they seemed. There was more to this than his Premier was letting on. That put Mikoyan in a vulnerable position. “Comrade Khrushchev,” Mikoyan said, treading carefully and politely, “perhaps you have a long term play in position with this maneuver in Berlin? Is this just an opening gambit?”

  “Ah, you are too suspicious,” Khrushchev said with a laugh.

  Which confirmed to Mikoyan there was more to this than Berlin.

  Berlin

  13 August 1961

  What a difference a day makes.

  On the 12th of August, 1961, East Germans could simply walk into West Berlin, then take one of the safe corridors out of the city to the west. Millions had done it.

  On the 13th of August 1961, they no longer could do so. In the decades that followed many would try; most would be caught and imprisoned and one hundred and ninety-one would die. That’s the official count. It doesn’t take into account all the spies trying to use the city as their crossing point to either infiltrate the other side or get back. The Cold War wasn’t so cold for those captured.

  The Germans could make the trains run on time; they could certainly start building a wall on time.

  They didn’t start with a wall, of course. East and West Berlin shared twenty-seven miles of border. Around the Allies’ three sectors bordering East Germany was another ninety-seven miles. Even the Germans would have difficulty putting up a wall to cover those combined distances in one night. It took the Chinese generations to build their Great Wall. It wouldn’t take that long to encase West Berlin with a wall, but it would take more than a day.

  Thus the first stage was barbed wire. Ironically, it is an American invention, a result of the need to fence off the vast open spaces of the American West. While soldiers and police put the wire in place, bulldozers tore up all streets other than those leading to the official checkpoints, making them impassable to vehicles.

  As dawn broke, the world could see that the Eastern Bloc had made a major move on the Cold War chessboard. Unlike the blockade of Berlin in 1948, the stakes were much higher now, as both super-powers possessed nuclear weapons.

  How would the West make a counter-move?

  Who would blink first?

  Chapter Six

  The Present

  Politics were being played in the conference room of the Anderson House as various senior members of the Society of the Cincinnati maneuvered to gain possession of the diamond-encrusted medallion that Lucius had worn.

  Turnbull cared nothing for the games being played down the hall. As soon as he’d left FBI headquarters he’d begun making phone calls, setting in motion the long tendrils of the Society of the Cincinnati.

  There was no blood on Lucius’ desk. The Society was most efficient in cleaning things up, both literally and figuratively. The events at the Tomb of the Unknown were being swept away and shoved under the massive carpet of secrecy that blanketed Washington. The Surgeon no longer existed in any form.

  Turnbull had no idea who would take Lucius’ place, but there wasn’t time to wait until the bigwigs in the conference room let loose their form of the fumata Bianca-white smoke-indicating a successor had been chosen.

  The door to the office opened and one of the SOC’s field agents came in.

  Turnbull didn’t waste time on a greeting or small talk. “Summarize the Sword of Damocles operation for me, Ramsay.”

  Ramsay was the SOC’s New York field rep. His expertise was finance, his focus Wall Street. This op was outside his comfort zone, but Turnbull had been caught up in The Jefferson Allegiance issue and the Surgeon taking out the Philosophers. Ramsay had thick, white hair, a nose that would do a Roman Senator proud, and wore an expensive suit. All part of his cover as financial adviser to the Society of the Cincinnati. Except he actually was the adviser, his other duties to SOC being layered underneath his legitimate cover.

  Ramsay was out of his element. While he might be able to command a boardroom on Wall Street, the chaos inside Anderson House was unsettling. But even more unsettling was that he rarely faced someone like Turnbull in New York.

  “We had to react quickly,” Ramsay said, looking around for a chair. He headed toward one, but Turnbull stopped him in his tracks.

  “I didn’t say ‘sit,’ I said ‘talk.’ And I said summarize, not explain.”

  Ramsay faced the desk. “We intercepted a communication from Admiral Groves just prior to his, uh, expiration, to one of the Peacekeepers he’d been in contact with. We tracked the Peacekeeper to Kennedy Airport where he bought a ticket to Baghdad. One way. We alerted our man in Baghdad, Haney. He’s also the—“

  “Expert on Ararat and Turkey and Iran and a slew of other potential issues,” Turnbull said. “I know that. And I’m in contact with Haney. What more have you uncovered?”

  “Um, well, sir, we dug further into this Jonah fellow since we were able to finally get his real name when he was cleared through customs for his flight. Joseph Penkovsky.”

  Turnbull put his hand to his forehead and winced. “You gotta be shitting me.”

  “No, sir. His father was one Ivar Pensky, but that name was changed from Penkovksy when he immigrated to the United States in 1969. Joseph went back to the original family name of his grandfather when he was of age.”

  “Do you think the Peacekeepers know who he really is?”

  “They vet new members extensively,” Ramsay said. “But I don’t think so. It appears that Pensky defected in 1969 via a classified Department of Defense program used to cover spies who gave them valuable information. He was given an entirely new cover upon arrival. It stands up to even a deep vetting process, especially after almost half a century. Everything was a paper trail back then and those can be wiped out. Joseph Penkovsky only changed his name back after he became a Peacekeeper, so unless they knew that, which we doubt, they’d have fallen for his cover.”

  “I assume Admiral Groves had something to do with Pensky’s defection to the United St
ates,” Turnbull said.

  “It would be logical,” Ramsay said.

  “So he could also have had something to do with getting Jonah into the Peacekeepers.”

  “Highly likely, sir. We’ve never been able to infiltrate them. And we’ve tried. I’ve lost three agents over the years.”

  “’Lost?’”

  “They disappeared, sir. Leaving no trace.”

  “And we still don’t know where they are in New York City?”

  “They’re not in the City, sir. They’re under the City. That’s where my men were last seen.”

  “No shit. You’ve had all these years and you haven’t been able to infiltrate or find them?”

  Ramsay didn’t answer because it was one of those questions where a negative answer just reinforced a negative result.

  “There’s no indication this Jonah, aka Penkovsky, has made contact back to the Peacekeepers?”

  “No, sir. And since Admiral Groves has expired—“

  “He was fucking killed,” Turnbull snapped. “Get used to it.”

  “Since Admiral Groves was killed, the Philosophers have had no direct contact with the Peacekeepers. And Penkovsky has no point of contact with the Philosophers either.”

  “Will the Peacekeepers reach out to the Philosophers?”

  “I doubt it, sir. They’ve been very security conscious over the years.”

  “No shit. But they screwed the pooch on Jona…Penkovsky, generation three.” He leaned back in his chair. “Groves had to know. And he had a plan. Lilly killed him too soon. That was a mistake.”

  “Perhaps Haney can get some information from Jonah,” Ramsay suggested.

  “Haney killed Jonah.”

  Ramsay had nothing to say to that.

  Turnbull drummed his fingers on the desktop. “So. We’ve got Penkovsky’s grandson in Turkey. The Peacekeepers are cut off from the Philosophers. This must be making the Peacekeepers very anxious. Anxious people react. When you react, you tend to screw up.” He looked at Ramsay. “I want everyone on the payroll, and everyone you can hire in the next twenty-four hours, on the search. We’ve got to find out what the Sword is. And where the Peacekeepers are.”

  “Yes, sir.” Ramsay hesitated. “If you don’t mind, sir. What exactly did Haney find in Turkey? I don’t get the connection.”

  The Satphone buzzed on the desktop and Turnbull held up a finger, silencing Ramsay. He put the phone to his ear. “Report.”

  “I need information on these warheads,” Haney said. “I’ve got low level radiation here, but I need to know what happens if I take the warheads out of the missiles. And then if I take the plutonium out of the warheads.”

  “Roger,” Turnbull said. “I’ll have someone get back to you ASAP.”

  He turned the phone off and pointed at the door. “Get back to New York and get to work,” he ordered Ramsay. “Use Penkovsky. He had to have left a trail back to the Peacekeepers in the City. He moved fast after Groves was kid. Fast means sloppy.”

  *****

  They touched down at Al Asad in darkness. The runway was lit by beanbag lights along both edges of the tarmac. Otherwise the place appeared deserted.

  “I’d rather be in the air,” Stretch said as he slowed down the plane.

  A strobe light flashed to the right, moving parallel to them on a taxiway.

  “Over there,” Ducharme said. “The truck with the strobe.”

  “This is the fucking wild west,” Stretch muttered. “I flew out of here during the war. You know how many billions of tax payer money they poured into the place?”

  The strobe light turned toward them and then the pickup truck was in front, leading them in the darkness. “How do we know they’re the good guys?” Stretch asked.

  “I don’t think they’re good guys,” Ducharme said, “but they’re the guys I’m meeting.” He could make out a pedestal-mounted heavy machinegun in the bed of the pickup. But the dark figure manning the gun had it pointed forward, occasionally swinging it left and right.

  A tall sliver of red light appeared ahead. A hangar door was being rolled open, the interior lit with red nightlights. The pickup truck rolled in and the F-22 followed. As soon as they were inside, the door slid shut behind them.

  As Stretch opened the canopy, Ducharme took in the activity inside the hanger. Piles of gear were scattered about. Men were loading magazines, others preparing combat equipment. It looked exactly like many FOB (Forward Operating Base) configurations that Ducharme had launched out of during his career. They might be mercenaries but they’d been soldiers once.

  A staircase was rolled over. Ducharme got out of the plane, stretching cramped muscles at the top of the stairs, then made his way to the bottom.

  A slender, dark-skinned man in full combat regalia was waiting for him. All the TriOp personnel wore black fatigues under their battle gear, with their company’s red trident insignia Velcroed onto the uniforms where the American flag went on a regular soldier’s fatigues. Allegiance to a company, not a country. Available for hire to the highest bidder, although Ducharme knew that wasn’t quite true. TriOp had its own agenda and leanings and wouldn’t work against what it saw as its own self-interests.

  The merk stuck out his hand. “Colonel Ducharme, I’m Cane, Commander of this team and this operation.”

  Coming from most those words would be a challenge and a drawing of boundaries, but Cane said it as if it were simply a reality; which it was. Ducharme shook his hand. “Just Cane?”

  “It gets my attention,” Cane said with a brief smile. He looked up at the F-22. “Nice ride. Is it going to wait here for you?”

  “Yes.” Ducharme looked past Cane and saw a UH-60 Blackhawk with ESSS stub wings and external tanks parked in the hangar.

  “We’ve got some fuel we can spare,” Cane said. He shook Stretch’s hand. “We’ll have a team remaining here providing security, but we recommend you stay in the hangar. We had to run off some squatters when we rolled in. We don’t think they’ll try to take us on, but stranger things have happened over here. I’m sure there are some who’d love to get a hand on the aircraft and sell it to the Chinese.”

  “Is everything for sale?” Ducharme asked.

  Cane shrugged. “Everyone has a different price. You know that bravery in battle used to be rewarded by kings and rulers by bestowing lands and riches on the best warriors? Then Napoleon came up with a nice scam: give them medals. Cheap pieces of ribbon and tin. You and I have both seen men die trying to earn those little trinkets.”

  “You know Evie Tolliver?” Ducharme asked.

  “Who?”

  “Never mind,” Ducharme said. “I’ve seen men die fighting for their buddies. Not medals.”

  “Whatever,” Cane said. “We all work for somebody.”

  “Got any chow?” Stretch asked.

  Cane pointed and the pilot moved off.

  “What time is wheels up?” Ducharme asked as Cane led him toward a room built into the side of the hangar.

  “We secured this facility just under two hours ago,” Cane said as they walked into a room that had been set up as an Operations Center. Maps and imagery were taped to the walls and a Satcom radio was on a table, manned by one of Cane’s men. Cane checked his watch. “We’ve got six hours of darkness left.” He led Ducharme to a large-scale map. “It’s roughly two hundred and fifty miles to the objective. So we’ve got a flight time of a little over an hour and a half.”

  “You didn’t answer the question,” Ducharme said. “And one Blackhawk? Going to be crowded, and we have to bring a load back.”

  “No one’s told me what the load is exactly other than some rather vague parameters,” Cane said. “And you’re getting ahead of me. You want it the official, green machine way, back in Group?” he asked referring to Special Forces. “All right, Colonel. Let’s do this right.”

  Cane picked up a pointer and came to a position of ‘at ease.’ “Task Force Noah will deploy from Forward Operating Base Al Asad between oh
two hundred and oh three hundred local time, infiltrate Objective Ark via helicopter fast rope insertion from one UH-60. Secure package, as yet not specified. Exfiltrate package and one personnel back to Al Asad. Flight path will be this—“ he began tracing a route with the pointer along the map—“staying well inside Turkish air space and staying out of air defense range of Iran. We will maintain radio silence at all times, since the Iranians have a lot of ears pointed west.”

  He slapped the tip of the pointer on the map. “We’ve got checkpoints and rally points en route, here, here, here, here, etcetera,” he said. “My team sergeant can give you the exact coordinates, call signs and all that happy shit.” Cane shifted out of army mode. “I know you might not be thrilled with me and my men, but every man here served our country. Or their own country, since we got a couple of Brits, and even one Australian. We all have our own reasons for being here, but once we’re wheels up, as you said, we’re a band of brothers, Colonel. We have each other’s backs. We have your back. We expect the same from you. You are not in the chain of command. You are an observer.”

  None of his statements were questions.

  Cane turned toward the hangar, which was visible through a large plate glass window. “Yeah, we only have one Blackhawk, and we were lucky to get that, especially one that can mount the extra fuel tanks we need. But we’ve got a big ride en route. One that will carry the bulk of our force and can—“ he paused.

  Ducharme heard what caused him to stop. The deep thrum of helicopter blades. After many years of service, Ducharme could recognize any chopper in the US inventory, and he immediately knew this wasn’t one of them.

  “Come on,” Cane said.

  They walked out of the room and across the hangar. The door was open enough to allow them out. A large form hovered ahead, slowly descending. The downwash from the blades tried to shove them back into the hangar.

  Ducharme recognized it as it set down. “A Halo,” he said, referring to the Russian made Mi-26 by its NATO code name. It is the largest and most powerful helicopter in military service. Over forty meters long, or about half a football field, and eight meters high, unlike the US made double-bladed Chinook it had only one set of blades, but there were eight of them, each sixteen meters long. It had a massive cargo bay that could hold ninety fully armed soldiers, but as important, its two powerful engines provided excellent lift capabilities. In fact, in Afghanistan, the United States chartered a Halo to lift out downed Chinooks.